WASHINGTON: Former US Ambassador to Japan John Roos has called on the two allies to lead global debates on realizing a world without nuclear weapons, ahead of US President Joe Biden’s expected visit to Hiroshima in May to attend this year’s Group of Seven summit.

“I think that our two countries, really, it’s important that we continue to provide the leadership (in global talks on abolishing nuclear weapons) and pursuing that agenda” on the occasion of Biden’s possible visit to Hiroshima, Roos said in a recent interview with Jiji Press. Hiroshima was flattened by the Aug. 6, 1945, US atomic bombing in the closing days of World War II.

Biden would be the second sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, after Barack Obama, who set foot in the city in May 2016. The Hiroshima summit among the seven major powers–Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States–plus the European Union is slated to take place May 19-21.

Roos attended the Aug. 6 annual peace ceremony in Hiroshima in 2010 to become the first US ambassador to Japan to do so, laying the groundwork for Obama’s visit to the city.

After arriving in Japan to assume the post of ambassador in August 2009, Roos in October that year visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to lay flowers at the cenotaph for those who died from the atomic bombing and also went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The visits “had a deep impact on me,” Roos said.

Roos, who received in 2010 an invitation to the year’s Hiroshima peace ceremony, decided to accept the offer “because it was something I wanted to do,” he said. “I thought that it was the right thing to do,” Roos also said, adding, “I thought the timing was right.”

In his famous speech in Prague in April 2009, Obama called for the realization of a world without nuclear weapons and expressed his intention to pursue nuclear disarmament.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year for his pursuit of the goal of nuclear abolition.

With Obama voicing his eagerness to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was also devastated by a US atomic bomb, on Aug. 9, 1945, the momentum for the first visit to either of the two atomic-bombed cities by a sitting US president increased rapidly.

Recounting his participation in the Aug. 6, 2010, event, Roos said, “The whole ceremony was so moving and powerful.” He said that he was “very glad” to join the ceremony and that it was “an incredible experience.”

Many people who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima attended the ceremony, and seeing them there and listening to their words “deeply moved me,” he also said.

Roos admitted that he was somewhat concerned because he was uncertain how the survivors would react although he took part in the ceremony with support from Obama.

Noting that the survivors began to applaud as he left the ceremony venue, Roos said, “It was at that moment that I realized how important it was to them…that the US ambassador acknowledges what had happened” to Hiroshima and then Nagasaki.

“I was moved…and appreciative that the survivors felt that it was a positive step by the United States to have its ambassador attend the ceremony,” he said.

Nearly seven years after Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima, Russia is repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons in its war on Ukraine while North Korea is pushing its nuclear and missile development.

“What we have now is an even more serious situation,” and this is raising the importance of eliminating nuclear weapons “to a whole new level,” Roos said.

A Hiroshima visit by Biden, who served as vice president under the Obama administration, would be “incredibly important” in order to advance the agenda of eliminating nuclear weapons, which is shared by the former and current presidents, Roos said.

The United States and Japan “hold a unique position” in pursuing the agenda as the only country that used nuclear bombs in war and as the only country that experienced the impacts and effects of nuclear explosions in war, respectively, the former envoy said.

The United States and Japan “need to be at the forefront of” debates on eliminating nuclear weapons, Roos said.

JIJI Press